nd destroyed all my fine sensibility. 'Yes, Donna,' said I, 'you are
free,'--here I threw myself upon my knees,--'free to make me the happiest
of commissaries and the jolliest grandee of Portugal that ever--'

"'But Don Emanuel?'

"'Run out, dry, empty,' inverting a finished decanter to typify my words as
I spoke.

"'He is not dead?' said she, with a scream.

"'Even so,' said I, with a hiccough! 'ordered for service in a better
world, where there are neither inspections nor arrears.'

"Before the words were well out, she sprang from the bench and rushed over
to the spot where the little don lay. What she said or did I know not, but
the next moment he sat bolt upright on the grass, and as he held his jaw
with one hand and supported himself on the other, vented such a torrent of
abuse and insult at me, that, for want of Portuguese enough to reply, I
rejoined in English, in which I swore pretty roundly for five minutes.
Meanwhile the donna had summoned the servants, who removed Don Emanuel to
the house, where on my return I found my luggage displayed before the door,
with a civil hint to deploy in orderly time and take ground elsewhere.

"In a few days, however, his anger cooled down, and I received a polite
note from Donna Maria, that the don at length began to understand the joke,
and begged that I would return to the chateau, and that he would expect me
at dinner the same day."

"With which, of course, you complied?"

"Which of course I did. Forgive your enemies, my dear boy,--it is only
Christian-like; and really, we lived very happily ever after. The donna was
a mighty clever woman, and a dear good soul besides."

It was late when the major concluded his story; so after wishing Ferguson a
good-night, we took our leave, and retired for the night to our quarters.

CHAPTER XXXVII

LISBON.

The tramp of horses' feet and the sound of voices beneath my window roused
me from a deep sleep. I sprang up and drew aside the curtain. What a
strange confusion beset me as I looked forth! Before me lay a broad and
tranquil river whose opposite shore, deeply wooded and studded with villas
and cottages, rose abruptly from the water's edge; vessels of war lay
tranquilly in the stream, their pennants trailing in the tide. The loud
boom of a morning gun rolled along the surface, awaking a hundred echoes as
it passed, and the lazy smoke rested for some minutes on the glassy water
as it blended with the thin air of the